Professional Associations

Since my future goal is to become a Medical Librarian, the two associations I chose are
MDMLG – Metropolitan Detroit Medical Library Group
MLA-Medical Library Association
MDMLG- Metropolitan Detroit Medical Library Group.  If I stay in Michigan, after I earn my MLIS, I am sure I will join MDMLG.  My manager has an individual membership and our hospital has an institutional membership to the group.  My manager, Valerie Reid, is also the webmaster of the group.  Members of the group include librarians, LIS students and paraprofessionals who are involved in medical libraries.  It is specific to hospital, academic and special libraries in the Metropolitan Detroit Area.
The group is a great way to meet with your local colleagues, make connections and have the potential to collaborate on projects with them.  It also offers the opportunity to learn about local jobs on their joblist and hear about upcoming continued education classes.  Recently, because of my manager being an MDMLG member, she was able to share information with me about a local PubMed training class offered by the National Library of Medicine.  This class will teach me to train other people on how to use PubMed for their research. 
Last summer, I was able to attend the MDMLG summer/business luncheon meeting with my manager.  It was a great way for me to meet other medical librarians in the area.  Attending the luncheon helped me to make my decision to return to school to earn my LIS degree. 
MLA-Medical Library Association- MLA is a national association comprised of librarians, paraprofessionals and students of LIS.  Their website also offers a membership to international professionals.  I plan on purchasing a membership to this group after I earn my MLIS. 
Membership to this association is beneficial to health science librarians.  It offers free and discounted subscriptions to various medical library publications.  Institutional members can receive replacement journals through a system of MLA exchange.  Just as in the case of MDMLG, members can network and exchange ideas. 
The MLA website has an excellent section about mentorship.  It offers information on how MLA members can become mentors or find a mentor.  MLA also offers information on how to become a member of Librarians Without Borders (LWB).  LWB is an organization that wants to improve access to training on how to use a library for research, to anyone in the word.  MLA sees LWB as a way to help provide medical research information to doctors and healthcare workers in developing countries or during times of disasters or epidemics.